University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, 20-23 June 2012

The transposed and rediscovered aspects of Irish culture continue to thrive and renew themselves throughout the New World and elsewhere. The interaction of such cultures within a wider spectrum provide the opportunity to discover and celebrate a wider definition of those directions towards which Irish culture overseas is developing. The growing body of literature produced by writers of Irish origin or heritage helps focus attention on the many Irish communities outside of Ireland. In the same way, the social and political history of the Irish in North America provides ample material for our understanding of transposed and renewed ethnicity.

For the conference Cultures and Contexts in Ireland’s Diasporas, we invite proposals for papers concerning as widely as possible the various Irish diasporas as reflected in literature, language, history, folk culture, life-writing, gender studies, contemporary popular culture, and new media. We particularly welcome papers that will address aspects of Irish culture in the Francophone communities of Canada, as well as the rich heritage of the Canadian-Irish experience in general. Although all papers reflecting the Irish diasporas of North America are welcome, we also encourage the submission of proposals concerning the Irish in South America and beyond the Anglophone world.  The Organizing Committee also welcomes proposals on other Irish-related topics as well as proposals for special panels.

Nous acceptons des soumissions en français ou en anglais.
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Final date for proposals:  February  15TH ,  2012

Contact: Paul W. Birt, PhD, Chair of Celtic Studies,
Arts Hall,
70, Laurier Avenue East
Room 134
Ottawa, ON Canada
K1N 6N5
pwbirt@uottawa.ca

A Graduate-Student Conference Exploring the Relationship between Hybridity and Irish Literature 

Place: University of Notre Dame

Date: March 29-31, 2012

Keynote Speakers: Terry Eagleton (University of Lancaster, University of Notre Dame)

David Lloyd (University of Southern California)

Clair Wills (Queen Mary, University of London)

Poetry Reading: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

Medbh McGuckian (tentative) (Queen’s University, Belfast)

In recent literary and cultural analyses, Ireland’s unique relation to various notions of hybridity has been given preliminary consideration. Whether pertaining to genres and styles, discourses and disciplines, or identities and influences, it has become apparent that a defining feature of many Irish works is their resistance to traditional, narrow categorization. In an attempt to expand upon these earlier approaches, the Keough-Naughton Institute at the University of Notre Dame will be holding a three-day graduate-student conference to address the relationship between hybridity and Irish literature, with a special focus on texts from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Submissions might interrogate past engagements with the concept of hybridity—a term itself which has no clear definition—as well as posit possible new understandings of “the hybrid” that are specific to Ireland. We invite criticism that focuses on conventionally understood literary genres (poetry, fiction, drama, memoir) as well as work from related fields, including but not limited to history, art, theory, folklore, material culture, and film studies. Furthermore, because the nature of hybridity suggests a coming-together of different elements, one of our goals is to cultivate a critical approach that is itself hybrid; in other words, we very much encourage interdisciplinary approaches to the topic. Our hope is to facilitate a critical conversation that envisions a hybrid Ireland—or, more appropriately, hybrid Irelands—and its literature.

Suggested topics:

Transnational Poetics

Generic Crossovers

Contemporary Engagements with Folklore

Transatlantic Fictions

Culture and Immigration

Ireland in Translation

Evolving Images in Film and Art

Recontextualizing “Literary Ireland”

Dialects and Language Change

Dislocated Spaces

Print Culture and Textual Authorship

Abstracts should be no longer than 150 words. The deadline for submissions is November 15, 2011. Please email your abstracts to hybridIE@nd.edu.

For questions or concerns, please contact John Dillon and Nathaniel Myers at hybridIE@nd.edu, or look us up on Facebook (search: Hybrid Irelands).

Text and Beyond Text in Irish Studies: New Visual,
Material & Spatial Perspectives

School of Canadian Irish Studies
Concordia University, Montreal
6 – 9 July 2011
Organizers: Michael Kenneally and Rhona Richman Kenneally

Initially based primarily on text-based literary and historical investigation, Irish Studies have increasingly been infused by resources and methods derived from other disciplines. Explorations of visual communication, of material culture and the built environment, and of performance generate contrapuntal meanings to be considered alongside textually-derived narratives. Indeed, words (whether sung, spoken or written), aside from their own function and inherent value in history and culture, also serve as conduits to study Irish things, places, and performances.

The premise of this conference is to encourage a flourishing dynamic between the study of text-based materials and that of images, things, sounds, tastes, movement, and other cultural and social markers, as a means of offering new perspectives on Irish Studies. The Canadian Association for Irish Studies, therefore, invites papers on any aspect of these disciplines. Papers are also invited on other topics of interest to members of CAIS.

Please submit your proposal by February 21, 2011 to irishstu@alcor.concordia.ca. Proposals should be 250-500 words in length, and include a brief ( approx. 50 word) bio of the submitter. Please send any questions to the conference e-mail address.

Ireland and its Discontents

Success and Failure in Modern Ireland

Canadian Association for Irish Studies/ l’Association canadienne d’études irlandaises

Annual Conference, 2010

Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

19-22 May 2010

“Anyone who is failing at one thing,” psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has suggested, “is always succeeding at another.” We invite proposals for papers interrogating the relationship between success and failure in modern and contemporary Ireland, as reflected in its politics, its economic policies, its literature, and its popular culture. The Celtic Tiger is one obvious recent example of a ‘success’ narrative that was intimately linked to a series of failures on the part of Irish society to safeguard its more vulnerable communities. With the recent publication of the “Ryan Report,” to cite another example, it is clear that the success of the Catholic Church in exerting its power over Ireland’s educational and reformatory institutions came at the price of a failure to guarantee the safety and welfare of Ireland’s youth. By the same token, it might be argued that Fianna Fáil’s longtime political success depended on the failure to engage with the ‘National Question,’ i.e., Partition and Northern Ireland. Success and failure, as manifested in language revival policies, in gender-related issues, in the lives of prominent public figures, and the reality and perceptions of the Irish diaspora, including the Irish in Canada, are also topics worthy of consideration.

We welcome papers that address other topics and proposals for special panels.

Please send proposals including contact information (250 words) by e-mail to:

Pádraig Ó Siadhail, D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3 (padraig.osiadhail@smu.ca) by 15 January 2010.